While many films continue to exemplify the ways in which women have been objectified, eroticised and demonised in popular Holocaust screen culture, some filmmakers have made concerted attempts to represent these figures on the screen in a more nuanced manner.

Eroticised Bodies and Complicit Women in Holocaust Screen Culture

These are particularly pertinent questions in the context of how the complicity of women is negotiated through various cultural texts, with such figures making frequent appearances in Holocaust films as eroticised 'Others'.

The eroticised bodies of women, and the positioning of these bodies through a male gaze (both within the films and via the camera), is evident in a number of other Holocaust films.

The prevalence of eroticised voyeurism and the common intertwining of themes of sex, death and 'moral compromise' in relation to the female body have resulted in the establishment of a highly problematic cultural context for any filmmaker who attempts to represent women's complicity.

They show how manipulations of dress variously served or subverted an aggressive new fashion industry for whom the stage was a vital site in the promotion of images of an ideal yet deftly eroticised 'ladyhood' for an audience of avid consumers, both men and women.

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